The most senior official to be ousted from the Financial Services Authority in the wake of the Northern Rock disaster walked away with a £612,000 farewell package and a £30,000 “performance-related bonus”, it emerged yesterday.

Clive Briault, who was head of the retail division at the City regulator, left “by mutual consent” on April 30 just after the FSA admitted to a string of errors in its supervision of the mortgage bank.

Mr Briault received £356,000 in respect of salary and bonus, £202,500 in compensation for loss of office, a £36,000 pension top-up and £17,500 for external professional fees, according to the FSA's annual report.

For his services during the year to March 31, he was paid £300,000, perks of £25,000 and the performance-related bonus.

The FSA immediately was accused of rewarding failure. John McFall, chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, said that it would be questioning the FSA in the light of its supervision of Northern Rock.

Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman, said that the pay-off was galling. “The FSA, as its own chief executive has acknowledged, failed in its duties to regulate Northern Rock. It is bizarre that senior employees responsible for overseeing the Rock should be rewarded so handsomely for this failure.”

The report reveals that Hector Sants, the FSA chief executive, received a pay rise of 37 per cent to £662,000 after a £114,000 bonus. He was promoted part-way through the year.

John Tiner, his predecessor, continued to rack up pay after he left on July 19, just as the credit crunch hit. He was paid £228,000 for the period between leaving and January 19, 2008, when he was released from his purdah, during which he was prevented from taking jobs with financial institutions or listed companies.

Mr Briault was the most senior FSA official to quit after the Northern Rock fiasco. He had worked for the regulator since its inception in 1998 and before that for the Bank of England.

The FSA has admitted numerous failings in its supervision of Northern Rock, repeatedly ignoring warning signs and an alert from the Bank of England.

Writing in the annual report, Mr Sants said: “I regret that the standard of supervision of Northern Rock in the period leading up to the market instability late last summer was not acceptable to either myself or the FSA. We are determined to put this right.”

He added that the FSA had performed “extremely well” from August onwards.

Sir Callum McCarthy, the outgoing chairman, received a pay rise, lifting his salary from £434,000 to £481,000. Total boardroom rewards went up from £2.6 million to £3.2 million.

The FSA, which is largely funded by £300 million of fees levied on financial services groups of all kinds, slid from a £16.9 million surplus last year to a £3.1 million deficit. It said that of 100 self-imposed targets during the year, it had missed 15. The number and amount of fines levied during the year fell from 32 and £14.7 million to 21 and £4.5 million.

— The Treasury is expected to give itself the power to force banks to prefund a consumer compensation scheme, when the Chancellor reveals his consultation on banking reform today.

Alistair Darling is expected to say that he will not yet set a date for the introduction of prefunding. Banks had feared that they would have to pay billions into a scheme to compensate savers who lose their cash when a bank goes bust. This is the Treasury’s second consultation on bank reform since the near-collapse of Northern Rock.

It is expected to publish draft clauses from the reform Bill before the House of Commons rises this month, although the consultation will remain open until September.

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